![]() ![]() ![]() In the autumn of AD 192, Commodus officially adopted the name Hercules it was at this time that his portrait on the coinage began to show him wearing a lion skin. All of this revitalization on his part, Commodus believed, would bring about a new Golden Age. Commodus ordered the restored city to be called Colonia Lucia Annia Commodiana, its citizens were now know as Commodiani, and the Senate was restyled as the Senatus Commodianus Fortunatus. Shortly thereafter, when fire had destroyed a large section of Rome, Commodus used it as an opportunity to re-found the city as a whole and, thereby, identify himself completely with Hercules, who was considered the founder of many ancient Greek cities. According to Dio (73.15), Commodus in AD 190 ordered that the names of the months be changed to correspond with his name and titles – Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus Augustus Herculeus Romanus Exsuperatorius Amazonius Invictus Felix Pius, and that each legion replace its epithet with Commodiana. The appropriation of this imagery went to apparently megalomaniacal lengths. While the Antonine emperors had traditionally associated themselves with the divine hero, Commodus appropriated the iconography more aggressively by wearing a lion skin and carrying a club, both main attributes of Hercules, and having statues of himself dressed as the god erected throughout the empire (for a bust of Commodus as Hercules, see Capitoline bust for the use of Herculean images on provincial issues of Commodus, see ). During the latter part of his reign, Commodus began associating himself with Hercules.
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